


human

by bvckybarnes



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bullying, Implied Murder, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Insecurity, M/M, Original Character Death(s), POV Second Person, mafia, mob boss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 08:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10509735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bvckybarnes/pseuds/bvckybarnes
Summary: You are – almost blindingly so – a human.So why do you feel like a monster?





	

**Author's Note:**

> a piece planned for creative writing A2, which thankfully related to one of the prompts i got in the exam.

You are a human.

Your hair is getting long. The brown tangles fall over your face, sometimes, dancing along the pitter-patter of scars and tainting of freckles that flutter across your cheeks. There’s stubble on your chin, grainy and harsh when you run your hands over it, and your eyes shine as bright as ever, icy and blue and full of something indescribable.

You are – almost blindingly so – a human. 

So why do you feel like a monster?

Maybe it’s the fear you’ve created around yourself. You’re pretty much the epitome of your job in Western movies; you’ve got two sleeves of tattoos, messy hair and unruly facial hair, and – more often than not – a cigarette hanging from your lips (and a gun in your waistband, but anyone who knows that is commonly unlucky). You’re fairly sure you’re not a good person – Hell, you’re a mob boss – and the people of Manhattan know it. Maybe it’s their misdirected fear that makes you feel inhuman.

Or maybe… maybe it’s the fear inside of you. Maybe all those nights listening to gunshots at your doorstep, smelling the smoke from the fires, or feeling the aftermath of break-ins manifested. Maybe each time you took a beating for being the foreign kid, each time your father hit your mother, and each time your head replayed the life leaving your little sister’s eyes, that fear grew. It became darkness; a darkness that sank deep into your bones, seeping into your insides – painstaking and agonising – until they were blackened with tar. Then – and only then – it may have surged out, consuming you whole.

But when you get home, whether it’s after a long day or week or month at work, you are reminded. You are reminded – effortlessly – that no matter what you do, no matter who you threaten or kill, you are human.

Because nobody could look at a monster, a beast of the calibre the whispers on the streets make you out to be, the way that Alexander looks at you. He looks at you like you’re made of stars. He calls you ‘sweetheart’ and ‘beautiful’, for god’s sake, acting like the dried blood under your nails is endearing. He looks upon your scars from bullets going in, out, and across your skin as if they are the most complex, meaningful constellations.

He looks into your soul, one you think must be coated with soot and blood, and he smiles.

You are a human, and whenever you forget it, somewhere deep in your mind, a voice says ‘ _sweetheart’._


End file.
